After thoroughly enjoying Dr Wills' 1988 book
(Wills & Cooper, 1988) I
was dismayed to see his recent article
(Wills, 2003). His book
detailed the real, unremitting and often unique stressors faced by those
struggling to make a living from music - as opposed to the pop-psychology
focus on their (allegedly) inherent psychological flaws.

Although entertaining, psychological autopsies are not valid research
tools, as the author fortunately points out in the ‘limitations’
box. Further, the ‘comprehensive literature’ about the
psychopathology/creativity link is shot through with badly designed studies
and dramatic overstatement.

Like Wills, Jamison (1989)
was the sole judge of her hand-picked sample - 47 creative artists - but few
authors dig up her unreplicated original work, preferring to pass along her
unscientific conclusions. For example, many introductory psychology textbooks
include her contention that 50% of poets have affective disorders, without
noting that she had only 18 poets in her sample and moreover diagnosed
affective disorder as simply ‘seeking treatment’ for it. And while
Ludwig's book (1995) is full of
charts and graphs, on close and trained inspection they are overwhelmingly
meaningless; despite its subtitle, it actually resolves nothing at all.

Unfortunately, the tradition in this field is to pass along any
confirmatory ‘mad creative’ conclusions, regardless of any
liberties taken with the scientific method. Most of the common research
blunders are detailed by Arnold Rothenberg
(1990), as well as in my own
work (Schlesinger,
2002a,b).
Such flaws should have been fatal, but apparently the public appetite for the
doomed artist is too great. It's a shame that so many professionals continue
to feed it with their invalid speculation. As Wills understands better than
most, musicians don't need anything else to worry about.

Author's reply

Schlesinger feels that ‘psychological autopsies are not valid
research tools’, and is scathingly critical of the work of Jamison
(1989) and Ludwig
(1995). However, she fails to
take into account the conclusions of Jamison's later work
(1993), which, as well as
reporting on her own study of 47 contemporary British writers and artists,
also discusses biographical material relating to 195 famous artistic creative
persons, 21.5% of whom died by suicide and 33.3% of whom were hospitalised
with psychiatric problems. Jamison also refers to many academic studies of
creativity and mental illness stretching back over the past century.

Turning to what Schlesinger describes as Ludwig's ‘overwhelmingly
meaningless’ charts and graphs, I have to say that I find his statistics
perfectly acceptable and meaningful. The use of psychological autopsies is a
legitimate exercise if one follows rigorous guidelines as laid down, for
instance, in the scholarly work of Runyan
(1982).

What is Schlesinger's own view of the creative person? She tells us
(2002) that he/she is a heroic
and mystical figure, branded as mad by the jealous and uncomprehending average
person. This is a straightforward reiteration of the ideas of the
antipsychiatry movement of the 1960s and 1970s. We are back in the realms of
the Laingian figure who is simply too insightful and too existentially aware
for our society. Have we not moved on since then?